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Friday, November 7, 2008

Bowing Down to Blogger

In the end, it was the gadgets that got me.

I have (and you'd know this if you'd been paying attention) been heroically avoiding the blogshpere, preferring to remain in the luddite world of actual, handcrafted, html WebPages. For years I watched other web-page journalist succumb to the lure of Blogdom and then endured them as they celebrated the wonders, ease and convenience of this brave new world.

I was skeptical; I still am.

For one thing, I don't find this easier. When I first attempted a blog, I spent many hours tinkering, losing text, trying to figure out how to post photos and ultimately ending up with an unsatisfying result. So I scurried back to my cave where I could draw on the walls with charred sticks and berry juice, and have remained there ever since.

But the blogshere moved on without me and now I find myself an outsider. If I want to see what other people are up to, I need to read their blogs. And if I want to comment, I have to have a blog. And if I want people to see what I am up to, I need to have some content on that blog.

But I won't surrender, not totally.

I am keeping my website, "Postcards From Across the Pond," but will post the content to this blog, as well. That way, people can stop here if they wish to read my posts, or visit the website for a fuller, more satisfying experience.

But the Blog can do something my website can't, which is feed some sort of electronic beast called an "RSS". Several devoted readers have asked if my website can feed this creature, forcing me to admit I had no idea what they were on about. Then I saw that Blogger now features a gadget that, with one click, enables the care and feeding of "RSS" without requiring me to earn a PhD in computer science.

All I had to do was click a single button to include it on my blog; it's there on the side somewhere, but don't ask me how to use it or what it does.

So against my wishes, as well as my better judgment, I am being sucked in by Blogger without really knowing what I'm doing. It's like giving your gran an iPhone for Christmas and expecting her to figure out how to send you a text.

3 comments:

Glad to have discovered your blog! Just think, your HTML experience will be an invaluable asset to you as you navigate the blogosphere. I know what you mean about clinging to the old "tried and true." I still argue with the webmaster at my college about the merits of tables over CSS (hey, I go waaaay back!). And I was rather fond of Netscape, and even Lynx, come to think of it . . . :)

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